JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The scope of a large burglary bust on Jacksonville's Eastside continued to grow Wednesday as investigators said they now believe there are thousands of stolen items on the property.
Detectives with the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office continued their investigation at a home on Spearing Street, going through each stolen item piece by piece.
Police arrested stepbrothers Guy George, 33, and James Walker, 25, on multiple charges of grand theft. Both have extensive criminal records, ranging from burglary to drug possession to aggravated assault.
Both men said they have nothing to do with the stolen items.
Investigators said they broke the theft ring case open after they received a tip that a video trailer worth more than $150,000 that was stolen from PRI Productions was on the property.
After getting a search warrant, detectives found the trailer -- and much more.
Detectives have been trying to identify the items, and they have already given many of them back to their rightful owners.
Lt. Ron Norse said 15 owners have come to the property to collect their stolen items, and he expects that number to climb.
Police have recovered several trailers, lawn mowers, motorbikes, a barbecue smoker, sand-blasting equipment, air compressors, pressure-washing equipment and more.
Norse said once detectives are finished cataloging all the stolen items, the total value could be more than $400,000.
“Every citizen in Jacksonville should be looking at this,” Norse said. "This individual, these individuals, were not targeting any specific side of town. And they may have not targeted specifically Duval County. So there might be stuff here from outside of the county."
Norse said JSO will be posting images of some of the higher-value items and industrial and commercial items on its Facebook page, so that owners can have a chance to claim their stolen property.
Anyone who recognizes any items is asked to call 904-591-6210 and will be given an opportunity to show proof of ownership and retrieve their stolen property.
Norse said a set of long-barreled firearms was also found at the home. He urged anyone whose gun collection has been stolen to contact detectives to see if it might be theirs.
The PRI Productions trailer that initially led police to the property was stripped and gutted and was in the process of being chopped up for scrap, Norse said.
Police were using inmate trustees Wednesday to help comb through the evidence. In the meantime, Spearing Street remains blocked off. There's no word on when detectives will be done at the site.
“We're trying to be as diligent as possible to return the property to its rightful owners,” Norse said.
Police emphasized the importance of having photo documentation and serial numbers for property, whether it's deemed valuable or not, in case it's stolen.
Kevin Booth with Gutter Helmet of North Florida said someone in a white truck stole his company's trailer a year ago. He checked Wednesday to see if it was with the other stolen items, but no luck.
"These guys had quite the operation here. You can see a lot of equipment they stole from hard workers out there," Booth said. "It is a tremendous hit (on a small business). You're looking at $10,000-$12,000 worth of equipment with a company like ours. And that has been over a year ago. And we are still being affected by something like that."
Detectives say many of the trailers stolen were gutted, stripped and probably sold on the black market.
Larry Hamilton Sr. said guys in a white truck stole his trailer from his Northwest Jacksonville home. He has the theft on surveillance.
"I kept seeing the white truck driving back and forth and I kept saying, 'Oh man," Hamilton said.
Officers are looking to see if anything they found is his.
"You can't believe the feeling I felt when I walked outside that morning and saw my trailer gone," Hamilton said. "Man something hit me right in the heart."
The neighborhood seems relieved that the operation has been shut down, including Darrin Noe, who runs a business across the street.
"(There was) just a lot of activity, a lot of people just pulling in, dropping stuff off, picking things up," Noe said. "Never would I have ever thought that that was going on. But now that it is all coming out, OK, yeah, you can connect the dots and it makes sense."
Uncle reacts to nephews’ arrests in burglary bust
After learning his nephews’ had been arrested in one of the biggest burglary busts in Jacksonville, Michael Denison, the uncle of George and Walker said he had no idea they had been involved in the alleged criminal enterprise.
He said the family was caught off-guard.
“I was shocked, you know. Who wouldn't be shocked?” Denison asked.
Denison told News4Jax that Walker and George are known to their family as Wesley and Charlie, respectively.
He said their mother was shocked and in tears after the arrests.
“She couldn't believe it, because they both, they were doing good,” Denison said. “Nobody knew what they were doing. We can't stay with them 24 hours. They're grown men. Wesley, he works. He does side jobs, just like Charlie. He does side jobs and his wife works.”
Police said George and Walker had been hiding the stolen goods behind a fence for years. Even though the investigation is just beginning, Denison said the family is trying to understand where the two stepbrothers went wrong.